College Board Releases Revamped SAT Exam Saturday

By Julia Dunn on March 6, 2016

This weekend, The College Board rolled out a new and improved SAT exam that will be administered as of Saturday, March 5.

After receiving criticism for its values and content, the old exam has undergone several major changes in order to become more accessible, reasonable and useful for students. As stated on the official SAT website under The College Board, “If you think the key to a high score is memorizing words and facts you’ll never use in the real world, think again. You don’t have to discover secret tricks or cram the night before.”

The vision for the new SAT stresses questions that are “highly relevant to [students’] future success” by measuring what students actually learn in high school and equipping them with what they need to do well in college.

Image Via Wikipedia Commons

The following are changes reflected in the new SAT exam:

*No need to memorize obscure vocabulary words.

–The test-makers have better integrated vocabulary into the new SAT by contextualizing words and prompting students to close-read. Students will need to be comfortable enough with words that have multiple context-dependent meanings, which better tests whether or not a student can actually use a word rather than memorize and regurgitate the word at the right time.

*Four possible multiple choice question answers instead of five.

–This is more aligned with the ACT exam’s format.

*No more guessing penalty that deducts a fraction of a point for every wrong answer.

*Writing and reading questions have now been combined.

*No more sentence completion questions.

*Highest score you can get on the new SAT is 1600 instead of 2400.

*The once-mandatory essay component of the SAT is now optional (note that many colleges still require the essay component nonetheless).

–If you do take the essay, no more open-ended prompts — there will likely be an excerpt of a text that you may have to analyze in your essay. Students will need to support their arguments with textual evidence on the SAT essay, a more realistic exercise that will prepare them for future college essays.

The new test also has fewer questions and asks students sometimes to explain the reasoning behind their answers. There will be more time provided for fewer sections as well. The College Board has made these changes in hopes of making the test sensible and representative of the skills students actually need outside of the exam, in college or in careers.

Some people claim the previously used SAT exam put low-income students at a major disadvantage compared to more financially privileged students who can afford to pay for SAT preparation materials (classes, practice exams, study guides) that may help students score higher and receive admission to college.

To accommodate more economically disadvantaged students, The College Board has also established that students who receive fee waivers to take the SAT are now “automatically eligible for fee waivers to apply to four participating colleges of their choicean average perk worth more than $150.”

This program opens up prospects for students to pursue higher education when they otherwise may have been economically barred from the opportunity.

According to an article by The Atlantic, “Elite preparation centers can charge $1,000 an hour to coach students to score high on the exam. Entry-level prices for SAT practice through popular test-prep centers can start at $750—nearly a week’s pay for the median household income.”

The expensive cost of these materials is unfriendly to families without the financial means to drop close to $1,000 on resources designed for one single exam.

Image Via Flickr.com

Content-wise, the exam is more similar to what is actually asked of students in high school coursework. In the past, the SAT was accused of requiring its own separate coursework (another reference to those expensive test preparation tools on the market). This may relieve pressure on part of high school students who have historically had to add SAT-prep on top of their schoolwork, not to mention the looming stress of college applications. If we are to discuss the ways in which high school students are overworked (not to say that college students aren’t also overly stressed), we can attribute much of this stress to the classic SATs — the traditional gateway to getting into a good college.

According to the Atlantic, College Board President David Coleman said the problem with the old SAT was that it “had gotten disconnected from the work of the American high school.”

“It’s not okay to tell someone to study something because it’s on a test. It’s only okay if they’ll use it again and again,” Coleman said. “Nothing you should do, we say to students today, should be to prepare just for the SAT.”

It may be that the new SAT is one of the aftershocks of Common Core, the new standard of curriculum implemented in U.S. high schools in the past few years. The exam itself seems to have been changed for the better, and will require more critical thought on behalf of students. Reasoning will be emphasized on the exam, as will fundamental math skills.

Students may or may not enjoy a format where questions may require more than one step before an answer is clear, but the new SAT seems to be on the right track as far as making standardized tests more useful beyond the test itself. There is no universally “accurate” way to mass-measure student success by any one standard, but The College Board’s new SAT is a step closer to a less-flawed college readiness exam.

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